Warcraft II: The Dark Saga

"Looks like a battle between Lilliputians and Blefuscans"

In recent years, computer games have been converted to console games with mixed results. Some games gone over with little or no changes, which makes you wonder why make it for the console if you played it on the PC in the first place. Others made drastic changes and add-ons, which made the game almost unrecognizable. WARCRAFT 2: THE DARK SAGA does a little of both. Although the game is still the same with good minor changes, there is still room for improvement.

WARCRAFT 2 is a real time strategy game, which has adapted both TIDES OF DARKNESS and its expansion pack, THE DARK PORTAL in one disc. You play as either Human or Orc and go through 12 missions in the first game, then 14 missions in the second. Play through both Human and Orc groups and you would go through 52 missions altogether. If that's not enough, the game includes 96 scenario missions that you can adjust and custom. In most of these missions you start off with a few men and workers, then you must mine gold, gather wood and build buildings. From there, you create an army big enough to go out and destroy the enemy and their camps. Other missions have you go out to rescue prisoners and escort them through enemy territory. These missions can make you spend many hours playing this game.

The graphics are still the same as is the PC version. It still has the bird's eye, face down view like the Nintendo Game boy's POKEMON and LEGEND OF ZELDA. The problem is the picture is not sharp due to lack of resolution and the characters are small (Not as small as the ones in COMMAND AND CONQUER) that it's hard to make out what you are seeing sometimes. This is bad if your army are in a tight huddle and you want to split them up so you can give separate orders. The graphics are still good to see, though, you just need to squint a bit if you're watching it on a small TV. The pop-up menu replaces the PC side panel menu, allowing more view of the battlefield and the FMV has added scenes which is good to have during in between levels.

The music is great and straight from the PC. There are about 5 medieval themes playing during the game, but it gets repetitive after playing for a long time. There is only one track on the CD outside the game and it plays the credit theme. The voice over are fun to listen to as well. From the servant saying, ''What is it?'' to a paladin saying, ''As you wish, my lord.'' The Orcs sound a lot like Grover, Yoda or any character Frank Oz provided a voice for. The sound effects are realistic, but limited. The sword clashing and clanging sound the same whether it came from Human or Orc. They also sound the same when they die as well. The added feature to the Saturn console is that you can listen to the game in five different languages. English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. It's interesting to hear an Orc cry out, ''We're being attack!'' in a different language.

The controls don't support the mouse and its difficult to always be exact with the cursor when moving or selecting units, but there are things that make up for it. One, you can control the speed of the cursor and the movement of the game itself. Two, you can control up to 16 characters at once. Three, there's an added feature called auto-upgrade for your castles and buildings and auto-build to make many men at once, instead of doing it manually one at a time. That way, you can activate the auto moves on the pop-up menu, then go off and do something else. The enemies are smart in some levels, but they won't quickly attack you at the start of the mission.

WARCRAFT 2: THE DARK SAGA is a great game to have. A strategy game that demand forward planning, prioritizing tasks and wise management of resources from the player. The only thing missing is multi-player, in which the PC now has called Battlenet. On its own, it's great to have on the Saturn if you like a deep and involving game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/24/03, Updated 04/24/03